New Firm Delivers Customized Solutions for Growing Workforce Capabilities
November 6, 2013…The Learning Point, Inc and Talent Effects, Inc are pleased to announce the establishment and launch of their strategic alliance, Blue Key Partners, LLC. Atlanta-based Blue Key Partners serves its clients with customized leadership development and learning design services and solutions.
Blue Key Partners Co-Founder Don Lang has been serving chief executives and senior leaders with specialized talent acquisition, assessment and development capabilities though his consultancy, Talent Effects, since 2002. For the past ten years, Blue Key Partners Co-Founder Laura Butcher, President of The Learning Point, has provided clients with strategic learning and development consulting along with customized instructional design services.
“We’ve spent a decade or more building our respective consultancies with a common core purpose – to unlock the performance potential of individuals, teams and organizations,” said Lang. “It’s this shared purpose around which we have launched Blue Key Partners.”
“Our firms have collaborated on numerous assignments over the last seven years delivering deep expertise across the entire talent development continuum,” said Butcher. “Blue Key Partners will advance our mission to provide insightful and relevant support to our clients. From talent assessment and coaching, to customized learning and leadership development programs, we help our clients to grow workforce capabilities that are crucial for their future success.”
Posted on: November 06, 2013
Stanford University recently surveyed more than 200 board directors, CEOs and senior executives of North American headquartered companies on coaching and the skills they have targeted for development. The results revealed a significant difference in perspective which may explain the talent gap in many organizations today.
Developing talent was the area most cited for CEO improvement by the board of directors polled in the survey. Close behind was the expressed need for CEOs to work on delegation skills.
CEOs are generally aligned with these results, ranking sharing leadership as the top development area most are working on. Developing talent was the fourth most frequently cited as a current area of development, with CEOs indicating both that it is important (23% of respondents) and that they are working on this skill area (21% of respondents).
Interestingly, at the next level of management, only 10% of the senior executives surveyed believe developing internal talent is a skill area needing development. Senior executives rate conflict management skills, planning skills, decision-making skills, motivational skills, compassion and empathy, listening skills, and persuasion skills as areas that they believe need greater personal development than developing talent.
Why “developing talent” as leadership priority progressively decline so quickly from level to level. Does the CEO think developing talent is the responsibility of senior leaders? And senior leaders see it as the reponsiblity of the of Human Resources? Is developing talent not seen as essential to achieving business performance results as is effective planning, decision-making, or the ability to persuade?
More than likely, senior leaders polled are employed in organizations with the tools and processes to support some measure of developing talent. In these situations, lack of resources is not the issue. Instead, it would seem that there is a gap of understanding and engagement between the CEO and senior leaders. To what extent is developing talent an expressed priority, expectation, or a bonus factor? How well does the CEO him or herself consistently make developing talent both a leadership priority?
Here are three things CEOs can do to raise the level of importance and action to develop talent in their organizations:
• Engage leaders in developing an organizational approach to developing talent
When leaders participate in a dialogue to create an overall organizational approach to developing talent, buy-in increases. Seek leader input into the design and roll-out of tools, processes and methodologies designed to support the approach. Taking these steps increases the likelihood that the approach and resources will be embraced and utilized.
• Focus leaders on developing talent rather than talent management
While a basic level of organization and structure is important to supporting talent development, too often the emphasis of talent management becomes a “check-box” activity for leaders rather than an integral part of their leadership. Focus leaders on what really matters – holding development discussions, mentoring and coaching top talent and creating developmental opportunities.
• Set expectations and metrics for developing talent
How well does a leader prepare his or her managers for new opportunities? Is the leader a “net exporter” of talent to the business? How well does the leader retain top talent in the organization? Expectations and metrics should be designed to support internal talent needs as they align with the business, not simply metrics for metrics sake.
Posted on: November 05, 2013
